1.27 trillion bells herald the dawn of a new era.
by John Hayward
12/17/2010

Doubtless you were looking forward to hearing the entire omnibus spending bill read in its entirety, over the course of the next 50 hours. I know I was – every last six-million-dollar second of it. I thought the only problem with the eight-hour Bernie Sanders filibuster was that it ended too soon. He was just getting warmed up.

As it turns out, Harry Reid didn’t want to spend fifty hours with Jim DeMint glaring at him and tapping his foot. Reid caved, and pulled the Democrats’ monstrous $1.27 trillion pile of figgy pudding off the Senate floor tonight. It looks like we’re going to get some version of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s one-page continuing resolution to keep the government running until February. In the new year, the 112th Congress will address the dereliction of duty perpetrated by their predecessors, and write a full budget for 2011.

“A number of Republican senators told me they’d like to see this pass, but they can’t support it,” croaked Reid, channeling the Red Queen of Alice in Wonderland in his hour of distress. He couldn’t marshal the votes to pass his bill, while McConnell pulled together the votes against it. Increasing public outrage over runaway spending put a strong wind at the Republicans’ back, but this was still a remarkable demonstration of skill and discipline by McConnell. He’ll make a splendid Majority Leader in 2012.